Today I had the chance to take the HSR bus from downtown Hamilton to McMaster University. I haven’t done this in a while (being in Markham for a year got in the way) so I was looking forward to it. The HSR has added some new buses and I was hoping to get to ride on one of them. I didn’t have any bus tickets on me, I figured I’d get some from the GO Station, but I was wrong. It seems the HSR windows close at 5 while the GO windows close later on. I guess having the GO employee sell HSR tickets too goes against some union contract or something.
“No problem,” I thought to myself, “I’ll just go to the store at the corner of King and James streets and buy tickets there.” Sauntering up James street towards King I had a chance to revisit some of the sights I had not seen since my move to Markham (which was followed by my parents’ move to Sarnia): the Y, some church, other buildings etc. When I get to the store, I ask for 10 tickets, “$18.50″ says the man behind the counter after reading the display. I pull out my (sometimes) trusty debit card and he swipes it for me. I look at the screen and BAM: “A $0.50 will apply. OK?”
No, it’s not OK! Why would it be ok? I’m paying close to $20 here, why would you charge me? Setting aside the fact that charging people for debit transactions is retarded in and of its own, it’s not like I bought a $0.99 piece of candy. It’s $20. I canceled the transaction and walked out, on principle. I don’t want to pay for a simple $20 transaction.
In case you were wondering, I did take one of the new buses on the 10 Beeline line. It was nice, I will want to see it in action once school starts.
